WATCH: Problem Reaction Solution: Internet Censorship Edition

In episode 344 of The Corbett Report, James discusses the new push to shut down alternative voices on the internet. Links, sources, show notes and an audio-only version can be found here.

Don’t be an idiot! The government is NOT going to be the neutral arbiters of the internet and the big tech companies are NOT monopolies unless YOU forfeit your responsibility and use their controlled platforms. The answers to the social media crackdown are already here and it is your choice whether the alternatives that already exist thrive or die. It’s up to you. Choose wisely.

Off topic but I’m sharing this atrocity here while OffG is still uncensored.
From: Hussain Albukhaiti (in Yemen), re-posted on SyrPer; kindly re-post it on a site near you. Or try to post it on MSM.

US/UK/Israeli/French and their KSA/UAE collaborators continue indiscriminate massacre of civilians in Yemen.

Casualties reached 31 inc 22kids
1st Saudi UAE strike targetd Alkoo’a village leaving 5 dead 2 injured.
Another strike targeted a bus carrying women & children from homes which had been hit before. They were trying to flee the area. Every one on the bus were killed, which is 26 civilians. All from Aldahfash family

WHY Oh WHY Oh WHY ??? Can someone not create an independent platform which CANNOT be censored, regulated or shut down by ANYONE – A platform where the most odious, despicable points of view, brewed in the minds of the sickest individuals imaginable, can be presented freely, for all to see and for those of right-thinking minds to IGNORE ??? Are we so stupid and scared that we cannot think for ourselves – Are we so feeble-minded that we cannot challenge the narratives of those whose voices we want silenced because we are so cowardly as to flee the battleground of discourse and dialogue ?

Bernie while I can understand and agree with your concerns that Corbett may appear to be be more concerned about his own survival I can see that he has made some very good points. The most important is that in the USA where everything is controlled or at least heavily influenced, the politicians are controlled by big business and big brother who are in a symbiotic partnership. While people like Alec Jones are vile and dishonest the vast majority of the people reject his nonsense I think the people to fear are using online platforms that subtly mould our opinions and manipulate us for their own advantage like Cambridge Analytics.
Fyodor Dostoevsky in Notes From Underground warned us that during the age of reason there are arising mild mannered men who despite their charm and reason are going to make Ghengis Khan look like a kindergarten teacher. He was correct just like George Orwell predicted our current state of control by the deep state. We have as John Ralston Saul said become consumer subjects, only useful to the corporations as customers otherwise they would replace us with robots.

Alec Jones says openly what he thinks for all to make a judgement on his alt right views and he has as much right to them as those who oppose him such as the Deep State groups who cloak their ambitions for one world order, currently bent on deposing elected regimes by all means across the middle East with the loss of millions of their homes and lives. The Internet need be open to all views and there should be nothing to stop anyone setting up new social media avenues in opposition to Facebook and its like.

I remember when the Internet was a relatively new thing, and such appalling sites did exist. Ignoring them was pretty much essential for anyone who didn’t want to throw up repeatedly, but the modern generation is so easily bored that becoming addicted to such sites could be a real temptation for vulnerable souls.
Personally, I don’t find it hard to draw the line, but human curiosity in general knows no boundaries.
Fundamentally, censorship is a moral issue, since it is those who would oppose puritanism or expose moral wrongdoing who get censored the most.
Which means that today’s fashion for atheism urgently needs to provide an alternative moral plug for the gaping hole left behind by its utterly materialistic philosophy.
Not having that plug is the reason we can no longer distinguish between our criminals and our law-abiding citizens.

WHY Oh WHY Oh WHY ??? Can someone not create an independent platform which CANNOT be censored, regulated or shut down by ANYONE – A platform where the most odious, despicable points of view, brewed in the minds of the sickest individuals imaginable, can be presented freely, for all to see and for those of right-thinking minds to IGNORE ???
”Are we so stupid and scared that we cannot think for ourselves? And so feeble minded that we cannot challenge the narratives of those voices we want silenced, because we are so cowardly as to flee the battleground of discourse and dialogue?”

The primary reasons for government-mandated censorship are political, religious or cultural. A censor might take a range of steps to stop the publication of information, to prevent access to that information by disrupting the link between the user and the publisher, or to directly prevent users from accessing that information. But the key point is to stop that information from being disseminated.
Internet censorship takes two main forms: user-side and publisher-side. In user-side censorship, the censor disrupts the link between the user and the publisher. The interruption can be made at various points in the process between a user typing an address into their browser and being served a site on their screen. Users may see a variety of different error messages, depending on what the censor wants them to know.https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/internet-censorship-making-the-hidden-visible

We are given the illusion of freedom providing we are toeing their line.. but will never ever be allowed to expose them.
We the plebs are controlled by corporate greed, and we are only tolerated to serve them, by consuming what they supply or killing their ‘enemies.’
And yes people are so indoctrinated, stupid and scared that they have given up the right to speak for themselves in favour of parroting any MSM propaganda they have managed to digest.
But those of us who are not quite so feeble minded do enter the battleground of discourse and dialogue, for the good it actually does us… but in point of fact are just whistling in the wind.

I’m a Marxist. I don’t know the “we all,” the “you,” the “us” and the “everybody” this guy is talking about. He’s as pro-capitalist as the people he’s complaining about. “Choose wisely?” Dump capitalism and become a socialist…and don’t judge the quality of socialism by the standards of capitalism. They are as incomparable as chalk is equivalent to cheese.

I don’t judge James Corbett by whether he is pro capitalist or a socialist. I judge him as one of the most astute and articulate observers of the current state of the world.

As for socialism a major problem exists because while some people extoll its virtues, when countries are cited as examples of socialism in practice, socialists usually return with the argument that the countries cited are not socialist at all.

With this in mind I will risk the statement that whilst the Chinese were very quick to latch onto the open philosophy of Linux, nevertheless, they seem happy to use Google to do the dirty work of helping police their internet.

Corbett excels at taking extant information and repackaging it concisely and with some wit. However I have little doubt he is motivated more by the income he recieves from his subscriptions/donations as by any moral compass he possesses. He has also hosted and defended Exxon shills to the point where a ‘gatekeeper’ suspicion is not unwarranted and thinks he has a grasp of science that he does not. He is also vain, petty and over reacts to/cannot handle criticism. But he does make a well polished video every now n then, usually avoiding the elephant in the room of Zionism however.

Actually you provided nothing that explores the ubiquitous tentacles of Zionist machinations that run through every facet of his content as profoundly as tree roots through a forest. Most of your links are Pilato raised on New World Next Week, those that are not mention specific cases and he singularly fails to mention that everything that has happened for the last century and more has the Zionist cartel at its heart.

No I do not define every climate change denialist as an Exxon shill. But those who have been exposed, in Balls case in court, to have been paid directly by Exxon yes I can fairly call them Exxon shills.

So people decideing to spend their working lives producing alternative news and media can’t make a living out of it? If they didn’t, then we’d have far less of it available.

If someone has paid sponsorship or ownership, then that’s a different matter, but nothing wrong with an independent news and opinion producer making a living out of it, far from it, we need more people to do it and we should be more prepared to pay for such stuff in order to support it and help it thrive one day.

I have no issue with anyone who puts in endless hours in research, writing and producing content from receiving an income for their endeavours. And I do support where I can, (I give J E Pillato £120 pa that I used to give Corbett), including Vanessa Beeley and UK Column. And my modest zero hours contract income is the only preventative in me giving much more.
My issue with Corbett is personal and impossible for me to prove to you or to myself. Yet my deepest gut instinct is to distrust him. I think he is a gatekeeper, an accusation he is quick to throw himself…. see his opinions on Assange, Chomsky, Machon and more. He is clever, and polished but essentially only reworks existing tropes and platforms ridiculous climate change pseudoscience despite conceding the basic premises of hard evidence. It’s like he accepts there is butter, sugar and flour but denies you can bake a sponge cake from them. I do not hope to convince you or anybody else to my caution over him. But caution is never a bad idea.

If out side forces prevent socialism working ie Cuba, Venezuela etc is it right to say “socialism did not work” or “socialism was prevented from working”. The USA has a lot to answer for.
Pure capitalism does not work, as shown by financial collapse in 2008, Most countries run a mix of capitalism/socialism.

Both capital and socialism are legally constituted systems of cooperation and compliance that define the social order. They are social movements and historical developments that express wide ranging interests in land, labour and capital. Either that exists or there are political aims or objectives to bring it into existence. Neither can be reduced to polemical arguments about “virtues,” “happiness” or the philosophies of Linux or Google and their interests. Capitalist “individuals” are always worried about their “privacy”….but I don’t see them signing up for solitary confinement. Capitalist law operates in perpetuity at all times. I’m policed 24/7….by the ruling class. It’s called class struggle.

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OffGuardian is the creation of people from different parts of the world committed to the original vision which drew us together on The Guardian‘s CiF pages...Tired of being censored by our beloved, once-upon-a-time left-of-centre newspaper, in February 2015 we decided to create our own platform for airing our unacceptable opinions.

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